Tornado in Tottenham downs trees and power lines; no injuries reported

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TOTTENHAM, Ontario — Environment Canada confirms that a low intensity tornado struck a rural area near Tottenham, Ontario, north of Toronto on Tuesday afternoon.

Environment Canada says its survey teams have rated the tornado as an EF-1 with maximum winds between 135 and 175 km/h.

“We had a team go out last night (Tuesday) to do a preliminary investigation and that’s how we got the EF-1 reading,” said meteorologist Kelly Hobelman.

She said a larger team was to check the area in the morning to determine the exact length of the tornado’s path, adding that it appeared the path could exceed 10 kilometres.

“We had damage reports of a house which had a garage damaged and part of their roof damaged as well and a barn was damaged,” she said.

“We also heard of a horse fatality in the barn.”

Emergency Management Ontario said there were no reports of injuries.

Some roads in the area were closed due to the severe weather and residents were asked to keep an eye out for downed trees and hydro wires.

Environment Canada was also checking reports that another tornado may have struck near Casselman, just west of Hawkesbury, Ontario, on the Quebec border.

“We did receive a report of a funnel cloud near Casselman in the afternoon or early evening, but we did not have any reports of it touching down.” said Hobelman.

The Tottenham tornado comes a week after a stronger EF-2 tornado struck nearby Angus, injuring three people and damaging more than 100 homes.

Hobelman said the two tornadoes hitting the same area was a coincidence and it is not uncommon to see tornadoes in the Windsor-to-London-to-Barrie corridor.

“All of southern Ontario stretching from Windsor and all the way east towards Ottawa is one of our Canadian tornado alleys,” she said.